September 2017

Thinking of solar panels and an e-car? First, work on reducing the amount of electricity you use. There’s one campaign promise Donald Trump may end up keeping. But it’s not his promise, and it will probably infruriate his biggest climate change-denying …

Couldn’t take the heat (or a/c bills) this summer? Consider a swamp cooler for next year! The heatwaves of summer are, for the most part, over. As we enjoy the cooler temperatures, it’s easy to forget that in just another nine months, the Utah heat wil …

Celebrating the passion and power of older women. Circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we’re weak and sing with us when we’re strong. — Sark There is a moment in life when this thought may arise: I am aging, I am n …

Feng shui for your body, house and mind. In the Chinese Five Element system, the element of Earth corresponds with the late summer, often referred to as Indian Summer, and that glorious moment in the year when we begin to settle down once more for wint …

How to care for and protect our urban forest, Part 2. Trees are an integral part of our urban landscape. They cool our homes, shelter us from cold winds, and are particularly pleasant to picnic under. Yet sadly, we take them for granted. We assume they …

Made of music, mothering, and magic. Amour Spreads technically began in 2010 on John and Casee Francis’ second wedding anniversary hike in Idaho. They had asked for a sign from the universe on what’s next in their careers, and found a thimbleberry bush …

Artists draw inspiration from their curated living spaces. (Part two in a four-part series). Painter Michelle Condrat’s studio sits on the second floor of a modest office building in Bountiful. It’s not your normal studio space—she shares a hall with t …

Eat fermented (cultured) foods! When you hear the word “fermentation,” what comes to mind? For most people, it’s wine. Or beer, or spirits. What—you don’t do alcohol? It’s still possible, even probable, that you have a fermentation fetish and don’t eve …

September is a plentiful time in the herb garden. The early, abundant September garden is a gratifying sight which beckons us to the harvest and keeping of the fruits of our labor. Herbs everywhere are leaning from the weight of flowering tops, produci …

What’s in a story? Is it truth, entertainment, fiction, lies or bits of each?   We live in the golden age of self-indulgent story telling where everyone has a blog or a podcast. A few are labeled as fantasy but most are in the competitive realm of “int …

“If you ask most people in Utah if we are we running out of water, they say, oh, absolutely,” says Zach Frankel, Executive Director of the Utah River Council (URC). But the conventional wisdom is wrong. During a field trip to proposed Bear River Projec …

The Bear River Coalition opposes a proposal by PacifiCorp (the parent company of Rocky Mountain Power) to raise the height of Cutler Dam on the Bear River. PacifiCorp is trying to sell the proposal as a water storage project, but in fact Cutler reservo …

Promontory Point, a remote and unspoiled place on the shore of Great Salt Lake previously famous for being the meeting of the transcontinental railroad, is about to become a garbage dump. Promontory Point Resources, LLC, is developing a 981-acre landfi …

Travel north on Beck St. from Salt Lake City and at the 840 North 300 West you will see the remains of Warm Springs Resort, a once-sprawling mid-1850s destination for those seeking health and relaxation. More recently it housed the Children’s Museum. N …

It seems inevitable that the environmental footprint of the West Davis Corridor freeway has already increased before any of the new freeway has even been built. In August, the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) applied for a permit to infill an a …

County commissioners from Kane and Garfield Counties may have broken Utah law when they held closed-door meetings with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke concerning the possibility of shrinking the size of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. The So …

Stay connected to your pack. Osho Zen Tarot: Adventure, Breakthrough, Letting Go Medicine Cards: Beaver, Spider, Wolf Mayan Oracle: New Myth, Manifestation, Dreamer and the Dreamed Ancient Egyptian Tarot: The World, The Devil, Five of Cups Aleister Cro …

Utah Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT-2) has introduced a sham bill that he says will protect habitat for mule deer and sage grouse, but it’s really just another trick to try to eliminate environmental review of projects on federal public lands. The “Sa …

Grow your own fertilizer! Healthy soil equals nutrient-dense food and healthy people. We all can improve our soil health by using red wiggler composting worms to make beautiful compost. There are lots of indoor and outdoor home options for red wiggler …

The 2017 Conservation in the West poll from Colorado College showed that 81% of Western voters agreed with the statement, “We should continue to require oil and gas producers who operate on national public lands to use updated equipment and technology …

Since yoga entered the mainstream about 15 years ago, I’ve proclaimed again and again that yoga is not just about the physical practice. I spent five years writing a book about the eight limbs of yoga, of which asana, the practice of poses, is only one …

With the kickoff of each fall and spring semester comes a flourish of activity up at the University of Utah campus. Freshmen scrambling to find classes only five minutes apart (pro tip: get a bike), seniors sauntering around the library courtyard, stud …

Israeli choreographer Zvi Gotheiner performs the deep listening of strangers in a strange land. On May 7, I put on my “Protect Bears Ears” T-shirt and took the yellow and black “Protect Wild Utah” sign from my front yard. Then I rode the bus downtown t …

An interview with Byron Katie. Byron Katie was a real estate agent in Barstow, California much of her adult life. She lived the American dream of brand new, shiny things. She bought and sold houses, raised and screamed at children and was so deeply dep …

September 1 Sunrise 6:54 am, Sunset 7:59 pm. Av. high: 78 degrees; Av. low: 58. September 2  National Preparedness Month. Make an evacuation kit for your pets: leash, crate, health records, any meds, i.d./microchip documentation, photographs of you and …

Environmental news from around the state and the West. I walk the Bear all summer as it builds strength again, widens into marshes, joins in lush bird-heavy congress with the great peculiar Salt, a lake that would surely die if not for this river, this …